1 Chronicles 21

1Satan rose up against Israel and stirred David up to count Israel. 2David told Joab and the troop commanders, “Go and count Israel from Beersheba to Dan, then bring me the report, so that I may know how many there are.” 3But Joab said, “May the LORD make his people a hundred times as many as they are! Are they not all, my lord the king, servants of my lord? Why does my lord wish for this? Why should it be a cause of guilt for Israel?” 4But the king’s order overruled Joab, so Joab went out and traveled through all Israel, and then came back to Jerusalem. 5Joab gave David the total of the people who had been registered: in all Israel there were 1,100,000 men who could handle a sword, and in Judah 470,000 men who could handle a sword. 6But Levi and Benjamin he left out of the count, for Joab found the king’s order hateful. 7God was displeased with this thing, and he struck Israel.

8Then David said to God, “I have sinned greatly by doing this. Now please take away your servant’s guilt, for I have acted very foolishly.”

9The LORD spoke to Gad, David’s seer: 10“Go and tell David, ‘The LORD says this: I am offering you three things. Choose one of them, and I will do it to you.’” 11So Gad went to David and said to him, “The LORD says this: ‘Take your choice: 12three years of famine; or three months of being swept away by your foes, with the sword of your enemies catching up with you; or three days of the sword of the LORD, a plague in the land, with the angel of the LORD bringing destruction throughout all the territory of Israel.’ Now decide what answer I should take back to the one who sent me.”

13David said to Gad, “I am in deep distress. Let me fall into the hand of the LORD, for his mercy is very great; but do not let me fall into human hands.” 14So the LORD sent a plague on Israel, and 70,000 of the people of Israel died. 15Then God sent an angel to Jerusalem to destroy it. But as the angel was bringing destruction, the LORD saw it and relented from the disaster. He said to the angel who was bringing destruction, “Enough! Now hold back your hand.” The angel of the LORD was then standing by the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite.

16David looked up and saw the angel of the LORD standing between earth and heaven, holding in his hand a drawn sword stretched out over Jerusalem. David and the elders, dressed in sackcloth, fell face down. 17David said to God, “Did I not give the command to count the people? It is I who have sinned and done great wrong. But these sheep, what have they done? LORD my God, please let your hand be against me and my father’s family, but do not let this plague strike your people.”

18Then the angel of the LORD told Gad to tell David to go up and set up an altar for the LORD on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite. 19So David went up as Gad had told him in the name of the LORD. 20Ornan turned and saw the angel, and the four sons with him hid themselves. Ornan had been threshing wheat. 21When David came to Ornan, Ornan looked and saw David. He went out from the threshing floor and bowed before David with his face to the ground. 22David said to Ornan, “Let me have the site of this threshing floor so that I can build an altar to the LORD on it. Sell it to me at its full price, so that the plague on the people may be stopped.” 23Ornan said to David, “Take it, and let my lord the king do whatever he thinks best. Look, I am giving you the oxen for burnt offerings, the threshing sledges for firewood, and the wheat for a grain offering. I give it all.” 24But King David said to Ornan, “No, I insist on paying you the full price for it. I will not take what is yours for the LORD, or offer a burnt offering at no cost to myself.” 25So David paid Ornan about 15 pounds of gold by weight for the site. 26David built an altar to the LORD there and sacrificed burnt offerings and peace offerings. He called on the LORD, and the LORD answered him by sending fire from heaven onto the altar of burnt offering.

27Then the LORD gave the angel a command, and the angel put his sword back into its sheath. 28At that time, when David saw that the LORD had given him an answer at the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite, he offered his sacrifices there. 29Now at that time the tabernacle of the LORD, made by Moses in the wilderness, and the altar of burnt offering were at the high place in Gibeon. 30But David could not go there to seek God, because he was terrified of the sword of the angel of the LORD.